


what lingers

by valety



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Gen, POV Second Person, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Harm, teeny tiny baby steps towards recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-09-23 00:32:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9631739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valety/pseuds/valety
Summary: If nobody will punish Asriel, then he will punish himself.





	

**Author's Note:**

> warnings for depictions of/references to self-harm and ptsd, with symptoms including mood swings, suicidal ideation, and intrusive thoughts. this fic also talks a lot about asriel’s guilt and self-hatred and therefore might be considered something of a """downer”"", although the ending is more inclined towards healing. and finally, there is a non-graphic reference to animal harm/death in the form of a metaphor. hopefully you can enjoy it anyway???
> 
> EDIT: I'm going to be going on a teeny tiny hiatus due to some hand + wrist problems I've been having! I will probably be back eventually, but I don't want to risk seriously injuring myself, so that means taking a break from all the writing I usually do. anyone who's interested can find me on twitter; there's a link in my profile

When you were twelve years old, Chara read to you a book in which a fox ( _a kind of…long dog,_ they’d said when you’d asked them what that was) found itself caught in a trap and gnawed off its own leg to escape. You’d bawled your eyes out at the time. The mental image would have been a horrifying one regardless, but the book had gone into excruciating detail, all of which had prompted you to passionately declare that you could never, ever do such a thing. You told them so.

“I could,” had been Chara’s blunt reply. Their voice and expression were both flat, as was the book sitting open on their lap. They were no longer reading. Meeting your eyes directly, they said, “It’d be my only chance at freedom. Even if it killed me, I’d have died one way or another. I’d rather die because I chose to than because I let somebody kill me.”

Of course that had only made you cry all the harder, because if there was one thing that was worse for you to imagine than being forced to cut off your own leg, it was the thought of Chara severing theirs out of some twisted sense of self-preservation. And yet it hadn’t occurred to you that the freedom they were searching for might not have only been their own, or that they might have been willing to give up more than just a limb, and in the end, you missed the warning signs, even as you placed the knife in their hands yourself.

You never were as brave as Chara, and when the time comes that _you’re_ the one who’s trapped, you can’t bring yourself to take that final step. You know what _they’d_ have done; they’d have refused to linger, plain and simple, especially once it became clear to them that there was no way out. They’d have ended things quickly and cleanly, satisfied with doing so on their own terms, and then the story would have been over. A sad ending, but an ending nonetheless.

But you could never be like Chara, no matter how you longed to be. You were only ever Asriel, coward and crybaby, and the primal terror that had flooded you during that first and only glimpse you ever took over the precipice had been enough to make you want to live.

You have never really wanted to die.

 

 

 

Chara is, of course, the first person you see when you awaken. They’re just as dazed as you are in their new skin, but they stumble with every step and you quickly realize that they’re struggling to walk. Of course, you think, silently chastising yourself even as you throw your arms around them in tearful joy, babbling and blubbering about how long it’s been. Neither of you have had your bodies for quite some time, but at least _you’ve_ been corporeal.

The first time they pitch over, you offer to carry them. They decline, but still allow you to offer them your shoulder, and together, you go to meet the sun.

There should be joy here as well, you think as the two of you lean on one another and navigate the craggy mountain path. There had _been_ joy—an eruption of it, alongside hate and rage and love and all the other things that you have not been able to feel until they’d suddenly returned to you. But it’s gradually beginning to subside, leaving only worry behind. Worry about Chara, who looks frailer than you’ve ever seen them, even in their restored state. Worry about the ache blooming in your shoulders, too, especially as they lean on you more and more. You worry—what if you buckle? What if you can’t support them?

You have to, you realize as the silhouetted figures in the distance draw ever closer. They’ve supported you as long as you’ve known them, figuratively if not literally. As a child, they drew you out of your loneliness and lit a spark of joy in you that you’d have not known otherwise. Now, they’ve helped to save your lives and the entire Underground when _you_ almost destroyed them both. You can’t be allowed to buckle, not when you’ve already disappointed them and everybody else in every possible way.

 _“Asriel,”_ somebody gasps—you’re not sure who—and then you and Chara are engulfed in a sea of bodies as every monster gathered rushes to embrace you.

It’s like flicking on a switch. You see the question in your parents’ eyes and know at once to answer it by smiling and weeping just like they remember, calling them _mom_ and _dad_ as though you haven’t changed at all, and they cry as though their hearts might break from joy as they pull you even closer. Their arms around you feel like a partial restoration of your materiality, moreso than whatever magic Frisk had just finished conducting: the returning of a third dimension that had long ago been stripped away from you. Pulling away leaves you more hollow than before.

You pretend not to know the names of those you’ve yet to properly be introduced to, even as you draw upon your memories of accumulated timelines and previous relationships to greet them. You bend and twist and shape yourself into whatever seems to put them most at ease—a gentle smile here, a carefully placed joke here, all to keep the atmosphere as light as possible, no need to reveal the dead weight sitting where your soul should be. There’s supposed to be joy here.

Frisk stands apart from the group, watching the proceedings with a blank expression on their face. You can almost ignore them until Chara shrugs out of your father’s arms and falls into Frisk’s instead, saying something that sounds like _thank you, thank you, thank you,_ and then you can’t ignore them any longer.

Shame roils in you when you accidentally meet their gaze over Chara’s shoulders. You’re not sure why. It’s not like there’s any anger in their eyes. There seems to be nothing much at all, in fact, with their expression little more than a carefully blank mask, unnervingly reminiscent of Chara back when they first fell and didn’t want people to see them.

You accept the hug Frisk offers more readily than you’d like to admit, but you still can’t manage to relax enough to let yourself sink fully into their arms. It feels as though something ought to be said, or maybe something done. The others don’t remember, that much is obvious, despite seemingly having been told what happened, but Frisk does. Frisk _must,_ and yet they remain so inscrutable that you can’t identify what they must want from you. Do they want you to cry more, to make some kind of spectacle of your remorse? Is it enough for you to smile and act grateful and glad to be here? Are they uncomfortable to see a dead kid walking? Should _you_ be reassuring _them?_

Nothing in their face betrays what their true feelings may be, despite the ghost of a smile lingering around their mouth. At the sight of it, anger strikes you like a thunderclap. Why are they just staring, looking so placid and pleased with themselves? They ought to _say_ something, right? They’d dragged you out of purgatory, despite you having been kicking and screaming all the way, and now you’re here and so are they despite you not deserving it and _how_ are you supposed to know how to repay them if they won’t _tell_ you? Would it really be so difficult for them to say _now that I’ve brought you back, this is what you’re meant to do?_

You say none of this out loud. The smile you give them is watery and nervous, but in the end, nothing more is said at all.

In the car that takes you to your new home—the home where Frisk has been living for over a year, apparently—Chara falls asleep with their head on your shoulder. It occurs to you that in the past, your positions likely would have been reversed. You were always the small one, the weak one, the dumb one, tottering after Chara as they blazed on ahead in search of adventure worthy of their own inner fire. You were the one who got worn out and wanted the games to end so you could just go home. Yet Chara is the one who’s tired now, and you have lost your right to sleep.

You stay awake instead, watching the vast, autumn-coloured landscape of the surface gradually unfurl before your very eyes, trying to ignore the current of tension running through you, all while Frisk smiles faintly at their cell phone.

 

 

 

It’s almost violent, the force with which your mood snaps back and forth in the days that follow. Everything is magnified, intensified, electrified. More than once you catch yourself on the verge of screaming or destroying something only to remember and pull back before you can do any more damage than you’ve already done.

Whenever this happens, you quickly fold yourself back into the smiling son your mother _(the world)_ wants to see, and yet a part of you becomes even angrier whenever she attempts to soothe you afterwards due to the distress you’ve failed to fully wipe away from your face. How can she not see you for what you are? you think even as you’re cradled in her arms. How can she still love you like this? Her eyes never express irritation or frustration in these moments, only sadness, but she _should_ be angry. You hurt her. You hurt everyone.

That nobody seems to remember the time when you were unforgivable only makes things worse. It’s as though your lack of absolution _is_ your punishment. And you begin to wonder if you were ever truly freed at all. 

 

 

 

There were moments as a flower where you would try and copy the desperation of that animal who’d gladly torn itself apart in order to gain freedom, the one who Chara so admired. You would think both _this is what Chara would have wanted_ and _maybe I can see them this way_ , and yet you always were a coward in the end, one who could never manage to sever the limb completely or let himself disappear the way he should have. You could tear a leaf off of your stem, though. Could rip off your own petals in pursuit of the pain that always followed. It was a good kind of pain, pain that wouldn’t mean the end, but would push you a little closer to the edge all the same. And, you occasionally thought with just a hint of giddiness, if you ever got _too_ close, you could always just reset.

That was how it went, in your more unsteady moments. Back and forth, back and forth, dancing on the edge, pushing to see when it would be too much, knowing it would never be enough. A reminder that no matter what else you did, there would always be at least one thing that you hadn’t yet experienced; a possible escape, should you ever truly be unable to continue.  

You want to believe that nothing of the you that you are now resembles the you who was a flower, but you’re not so stupid that you can’t recognize the threads of malice that have been woven through your being so snugly it’s as though they’ve always been there. That _urge,_ whatever it is, lingers in your dust as well, as though it hadn’t simply been a way of occupying time and chasing sensation after all but had instead been something permanent, something essential, that had at some point been etched onto your very soul without your knowledge, fixing itself firmly into place.

It’s not something you want to think about, so you ignore it even as it boils underneath your skin. But you guess nobody is surprised when it finally boils over and you find yourself thinking _I wonder if…?_

You’re lying in your bed the night you do, trying to remember how to sleep. It starts as just a thought, one that reasonably should be allowed to pass, but it’s a thought that sticks with you, and you toss and turn as though trying to shake it from your mind.

But finally, you touch one of your claws to the base of your wrist.

It digs into your skin with surprising ease. It’s not as simple as the tearing of a petal or the experimental singeing of a leaf had been, but you suppose the intent to harm is there and that’s what counts when it comes to damaging a monster. 

Your mind flashes briefly to an image of your entire arm collapsing into dust, but you don’t cut deep enough for that. It’s just a line, that’s all, a thin line dragged across your skin. Only a sprinkling of dust falls onto your mattress, but that disappears soon enough, and then you’re left with only a pain that somehow feels almost solid.

The relief is far more palpable than you’d have thought. The pain is richer than it had been back when you were a flower, too. And, you realize, your fur is thick enough that nobody will ever have to know it even happened. Aside from dust, dust which always vanishes, there’s no evidence of what you’ve done at all, and _you’re_ the only one who’s hurt.

Your claws find their way into your arms more and more often after that. There’s something almost addictive about it, and the reasons to seek pain out only seem to grow as the days continue ticking by. Most often it’s a reminder that pain is something to be felt, that the body you now wear is real and not a dream, but other times it’s to curb your temper, channelling your more destructive impulses inward, turning your innate violence against yourself each time an awful image floods your mind.

The reason is never _because I want to die,_ because you do not want to die.

If you were able to, then none of this would have happened in the first place.

 

 

 

The best reason of all comes to you late one night when you’re sitting up after a visit to your father’s. It was the first time you’d seen him since your initial reawakening and the shock of it had almost brought you to your knees, because you saw him and your first thought was _I killed you._ Yet he was smiling and asking if you would like a cup of tea, and for the rest of the visit, you couldn’t shake the mental image of vines and stars and clean white bullets tearing him apart.

You’ve scattered far more dust than anyone could ever know, you realize, and they will never hate you properly for it because they _don’t remember_. Everything is out of balance and nobody can tell you how to mend it, and in that late-night haze, you think, _I need to restore balance myself._

It becomes even easier to shed your own dust after that.

 

 

 

It occurs to you that maybe, _maybe,_ you could talk to Chara about…whatever is going on with you. That darkness that has not yet left you. You’ve always told them everything in the past, and vice versa, but more than that, you vividly recall the sight of their raw-red upper arms and the way they’d sometimes scratch themselves when their anxiety became too overwhelming. As a child, you hadn’t understood what those marks meant, not until the first time you caught Chara making them themselves; then you’d wept and begged them not to do it anymore, and they had laughed and asked you why you thought they hadn’t yet stopped on their own, and you had had no answer.

You think you understand a little better now.

But you still can’t say anything. Chara hasn’t been themselves in a long, long time. They cry and sleep and occasionally scream before sinking against whoever’s closest, as if they don’t know how to carry the weight of a body any longer. When they come to you these days, it’s to sit quietly and close their eyes and maybe ask if you can read to them, not to be your shoulder to cry on. They come to you in search of steadiness, silently asking that you please return the favour they had done for you themselves when you were younger, and you can’t bear to let them down.

(They already go to Frisk so often, now, Frisk whose expression never changes and who’s never said a word to you about the things you said in the flower patch and whose presence and whose kindness instills in you the strangest, most crushing kind of loneliness you’ve ever felt, and _please please please don’t leave me behind.)_

You wouldn’t have any right to go to them for help, anyway. Any damage you’ve sustained has been damage of your own design. The pain that drove Chara to their own self-harm was pain inflicted on them by others. There’s a difference there, a significant one. You can’t knock down your own sandcastle and expect sympathy from one who’s had theirs kicked down by others.

At least it’s easy to pretend that nothing’s wrong. Everyone seems to half believe it already, aside from the occasional crying jag you suffer that they assume to be the extent of things. But in private, your claws cut into you so deep that you wonder when your hidden scars will become permanent, or if perhaps they’ve been burnt into your skin already.

 

 

 

You still don’t want to die.

 

 

 

But you don’t really want to live, either.

 

 

 

Chara leaves one day. Not permanently; it’s to go to the doctor for some tests. Their new body is so weak that they’ve had to go to what feels like a hundred appointments over the past few weeks, and now they’re checking for something else that apparently means they need to be stuck with needles yet again.

You and Frisk go with them, because your mother doesn’t want to leave the two of you alone. You don’t go into the doctor’s office, instead staying in the waiting area, surrounded by glossy magazines and pale green walls and unwell-looking monsters who stare at Frisk curiously when they see them sitting beside you.

Frisk fiddles with their cell phone, saying nothing. You yourself have nothing to do at all. You hadn’t thought about how boring the wait would be. Stupid, really, considering how easily you’ve been getting bored these days. You should have brought a book or something.

“So, um,” you say after about as much silence as you can stand. Your hands are knotted on your lap. You sneak a glance at Frisk. “What are you playing?”

Frisk holds their phone out to you. The screen shows not a game at all, but a messenger function which appears to have four conversations happening at once.

“Oh, wow,” you say, smiling. “I guess you must be pretty popular. But that’s not really a surprise— you’re good at making friends, aren’t you?”

Frisk smiles back and returns to their phone, and you can think of nothing else to say. All you’ve ever known of them is that everybody seems to love them, but your inexplicable fear of them and what they know of you has placed a gap between the two of you that you don’t know how to bridge.

Eventually, the discomfort becomes too much. You look away, but you’re not sure what to focus on: there are many, many monsters in the waiting room, all of them sick or injured or at the least quite tired. You don’t want to accidentally meet anybody’s eyes, though. If you do, you might find yourself thinking something you don’t want to.

But it’s too late. Already the thoughts are flickering in and out, ushered by your steadily growing discomfort. _I could smash that person’s face into the wall,_ you think before you can stop yourself, staring at the sniffling lizard sitting three chairs down. _Light that potted plant on fire. Take Frisk’s arm and_ —

You catch yourself and close your eyes, blocking out your surroundings as best as you can. You can’t think like this. You _can’t._

 _But wouldn’t it be funny?_ another part of you wonders, amusement weaving around your panic. _You’ve managed to hold out an entire month. Wouldn’t it be a big, funny surprise for everyone if you snapped and rampaged at the_ doctor’ _s, of all places?_

No. _No._ It wouldn’t be, and you don’t want that.

But if you’re thinking it, then you must not have changed that much after all.  

Right. As if a soul alone would really make a difference.  

Maybe the others just don’t realize that, you think. If you’re horrible enough, then they would _have_ to hate you, and maybe it would make them realize that you hadn’t been worth saving after all. Would they kill you themselves, then, saving you the need to muster up the courage to do it yourself?

No. No. _No._ You don’t want to hurt anybody, you remind yourself almost desperately. You’re the only one who deserves to be hurt. But not here—and despite your inner trembling, you sit perfectly still, the only outer indication of your tension being the rigidity in your shoulders and the ever-tighter knotting of your fists. You can’t do anything here, not while you’re surrounded. When you get home, maybe, you can shut yourself up in your room for a bit, and then…

Something vibrates in your pocket. You nearly leap out of your chair. It’s your phone, you realize, but that’s almost stranger than the idea that your pocket might be vibrating on its own. Nobody texts you, because _you_ never text _them,_ so who…?

You pull your phone out, half expecting it to be some kind of spam. But there on the screen is a message from Frisk, one simply reading _are you okay?_

Your head jerks towards them. They’re still focused on their phone, not even looking up at you, but you notice that they aren’t typing, as though they’re instead waiting for a response.

Your ensuing relief is shot through with irritation. For once, it’s clear what they want from you; an answer. But what the hell could you possibly say?

On impulse, you text back _I want to light myself on fire._

You’re already typing out a hasty _just kidding_ —that was a dumb thing to say, they’ll either think it was a weird joke or that you’re being completely serious and need to be locked up—when you notice that Frisk has set their phone down on their lap. With a vicious, bitter sort of silent triumph, you delete what you were typing, not putting together that they had only set it down to rummage through their pockets until they’re holding a pink plastic bandage out to you.

“What is that?” you say, staring at it.

Your phone buzzes again a moment later. _Bandaids make me feel better,_ the text reads.

Frisk stares at you expectantly. You take the bandage from them, feeling a bit unsure of what to do with it. You don’t want to say anything to them out loud, not when it would make you look like you’re talking to yourself, so you pick your phone back up and type, _I’m not hurt though._

_I put them on when I WANT to hurt._

Quickly, you type, _that was a joke though!!! haha_

 _It’s okay if it’s not a joke._ Then, a moment later: _Chara and I feel like that a lot._

For a split-second, you want to snap your phone in half. You swallow down the urge to say _I know how Chara feels_ , because you don’t, really; all you can do is guess. Someone who shared a body with them for longer than an hour or so probably knows them more than you do.

As the feeling passes, you find yourself fixating on the words _and I._

When Frisk wants to hurt, you think, they put a bandage on. And you’ve seen their knees and hands —they’re positively covered in brightly coloured bandages.

A text comes, interrupting the slow turning of your thoughts.

It reads, _you’re not the only one._

Another text.

 _You don’t remember, but_ _I’ve done bad things too._  

A third text, but this time from you, sent with shaking fingers and a hand that grips your phone a little bit too tightly, reading, _do you ever want people to get mad at you? but they won’t?_

It’s not exactly what you want to say, but you’re not sure how to explain it any better than that—the idea that every wound you sustain will be an apology to someone who does not remember well enough to properly forgive you.

But then you receive your response—a simple _yeah_ and then a _mom wouldn’t get mad at me._ And then: _she gave me the bandaids._

You remember that when Chara would scratch themselves, your mother taught them how to knit, giving them something else to do with their fingers so that the anxious twitchiness wouldn’t overtake them. Maybe this is something similar. Maybe she encouraged Frisk to wear the appearance of an injury so that they wouldn’t feel as compelled to pursue an injury for real. Would that even work?

Whether it worked or not, you can see her doing it in the hopes of helping them.

She wouldn’t want you hurting yourself, either, you think heavily. If only that were enough.

But Frisk saying it's okay, and offering a possible alternative...that feels different, somehow. 

You can’t say for sure what’s going through your mind when you at last take up the bandage and unpeel the paper wrapping, only that you find yourself thinking _I can’t hide it forever._ But you paste it on the base of your wrist all the same, right over the site of your first self-inflicted wound, and Frisk’s smile is faint but genuine.

Something clicks when you see that smile, a possibility you had not previously considered. Frisk did not save you because they wanted you to make it up to them. Frisk did not save you because they wanted you to do _anything_ for them. Frisk saved you because you needed help, plain and simple.

“Do you have any more?” you find yourself asking, and in no time at all, the pockets of your coat are practically lined with cutesy bandages.

Chara and your mother emerge from the doctor’s office shortly afterwards, Chara scowling and rubbing their arm as your mother guides them by the shoulder towards the block of chairs where you and Frisk are sitting. You rise quickly, as does Frisk, and the phone in your hand feels warm from the ghost of the _thank you_ you’d sent a moment earlier.

You feel a little lighter as you leave the clinic that day, despite not having made any new marks or shed any more dust and despite the weight of the bandage sitting on your wrist. It’s like simply sharing how you feel with someone—however briefly, however vaguely—relieved a little of the pressure in you.

Something to consider, you suppose.

Your phone buzzes one final time, and when you check it, there is simply a smiley face.

 

 

 

The next time something in you splinters, you try applying one of Frisk’s bandages before doing anything else. They’re not quite as satisfying, and they don’t even stick _that_ well on your fur, but it’s okay. It’s still a change, a stepping stone leading you a little further down the path you want to someday walk, one way or another.

The one thing that has always been true is that you do not want to die. And if you do not want to die, then you ought to at least find a way to be able to start living with yourself.

This, at least, is a start.


End file.
